The Global Campus - ICT and the Future of Universities

This paper analyses the changes which the ICT causes on a global scale. The globalization of higher education triggered by e-Learning, the emergence of e-infrastructure for e-science, the Open Educational Resources movement, e-libraries and the tendency of building global educational alliances are analysed as well. Special emphasis is put on several wellknown university models, e.g. Research University, Open University and Entrepreneurial University, as well as on some emerging university models for the Knowledge Society, such as: Global University and Innovation University. The paper puts in focus the influence of the ICTs and the new organizational and business models they bring, such as Virtual University, eCampus, Enterprise 2.0, University 2.0. A new university model is defined—the Global Campus Model. Some arguments that the ultimate result of the ICTs driven transformations could turn the whole world into a Global Campus in the next few decades

Universities in the global knowledge economy: the eclectic paradigm

Університети як інституції генерування та дифузії знань у своїй діяльності мають враховувати не лише рівень організації чи країни, але й ідивідульної трансформації знань створюючи умови для креативності випускників та науково-педагогічних працівників, які становлять базис інтелектуального капіталу університету та країни. Національний інтелектуальний капітал, функціонуючи в умовах глобальної конкуренції, є одним з факторів соціально-економічного розвитку та міжнародного конкурентного статусу країн. Еволюція концепції університету за декілька десятиліть пройшла значний шлях у напрямку визначення режиму діяльності університету як інституції, що забезпечує масову освіту, здійснює фундаментальні та прикладні дослідження та значним чином бере участь у місцевому, національному та глобальному розвитку, однак парадигма їх діяльності є екле́ктичною. Рівноправні відносини між університетами, урядом і промисловістю в суспільстві знань добре окреслені концепцією інноваційних систем потрійної спіралі, до якої долучаються громадські організації. Університети світового класу до своїх характеристик усе частіше долучають поняття підприємницького університету, який активно конкурує в глобальному науково-освітньому просторі.As institutions of knowledge generation and diffusion, in the course of their activities universities should take into account not only the level of an organization or a country but also that of individual knowledge transformation, whereby creating favorable conditions for developing creativity of both graduates and academic staff who form the basis of the intellectual capital of the university and the country. While functioning in the global competitive climate, the national intellectual capital is a factor of socio-economic development and international competitive status of individual countries. During decades the concept of university has been evolving toward determining the operation mode of a university as that of an institution providing mass education, carrying out fundamental and applied researches as well as largely participating in local, national and global development. However, the university operation paradigm remains eclectic. Equal relationships between universities, government and industry in a knowledge-based society are well-defined by the concept of triple helix innovation systems engaging NGOs. World-class universities tend ever more to incorporate the feature of an entrepreneurial university actively competing in the global academic domain

Enhancing the collaboration of earthquake engineering research infrastructures

Towards stronger international collaboration of earthquake engineering research infrastructures International collaboration and mobility of researchers is a means for maximising the efficiency of use of research infrastructures. The European infrastructures are committed to widen joint research and access to their facilities. This is relevant to European framework for research and innovation, the single market and the competitiveness of the construction industry.JRC.G.4-European laboratory for structural assessmen

The Importance of Clusters for Sustainable Innovation Processes: The Context of Small and Medium Sized Regions

The purpose of the current paper is to provide a critical state-of-the-art review of current research on clusters and its correlation to innovation dynamics in small and medium-sized regions. In particular, we focus on the systematization of the main concepts and theoretical insights that are tributary to the cluster overview in terms of its relevance for the sustainability of the innovation processes, knowledge production and diffusion, which take place inside small and medium-sized regions. The present working paper takes into account the initial studies on English industrial districts (in the nineteenth century), passing through the Italian industrial districts (in the 70s and 80s of the twentieth century), until the modern theories of business clusters and innovation systems. These frameworks constitute the basis of an approach to endogenous development, which gives a central role to the interaction between economic actors, the society and the institutions and to the identification, mobilization and combination of potential resources within a particular geographical area.Cluster; Innovation; Endogenous development; Territory.

Innovation in Cultural Heritage Research

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Envisioning Digital Europe 2030: Scenarios for ICT in Future Governance and Policy Modelling

The report Envisioning Digital Europe 2030 is the result of research conducted by the Information Society Unit of IPTS as part of the CROSSROAD Project - A Participative Roadmap on ICT research on Electronic Governance and Policy Modelling (www.crossroad-eu.net ). After outlining the purpose and scope of the report and the methodological approach followed, the report presents the results of a systematic analysis of societal, policy and research trends in the governance and policy modelling domain in Europe. These analyses are considered central for understanding and roadmapping future research on ICT for governance and policy modelling. The study further illustrates the scenario design framework, analysing current and future challenges in ICT for governance and policy modelling, and identifying the key impact dimensions to be considered. It then presents the scenarios developed at the horizon 2030, including the illustrative storyboards representative of each scenario and the prospective opportunities and risks identified for each of them. The scenarios developed are internally consistent views of what the European governance and policy making system could have become by 2030 and of what the resulting implications for citizens, business and public services would be. Finally, the report draws conclusions and presents the proposed shared vision for Digital Europe 2030, offering also a summary of the main elements to be considered as an input for the future development of the research roadmap on ICT for governance and policy modelling.JRC.DDG.J.4-Information Societ

The cloud sovereignty nexus: How the European Union seeks to reverse strategic dependencies in its digital ecosystem

How does the European Union balance the need to migrate data to the cloud with the imperative of reducing its dependence on foreign cloud providers? Cloud computing is a critical technology for the competitiveness of the European Union (EU) in the digital economy. This paper argues that the EU is adopting a host of regulatory requirements and industrial policy tools—which fall under the umbrella term of ‘data sovereignty’—not only to protect the confidentiality of European data, but also to counter the dominance of US vendors in the European cloud market. To demonstrate how data sovereignty principles are woven into current EU policy initiatives, the paper presents two case studies: Gaia-X and the European Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge, and Cloud. Linking data sovereignty to the lack of a competitive European cloud ecosystem sheds light on the strategic dimension of cloud computing in a way that treating them separately would not do

Complexity Aided Design: the FuturICT Technological Innovation Paradigm

"In the next century, planet earth will don an electronic skin. It will use the Internet as a scaffold to support and transmit its sensations. This skin is already being stitched together. It consists of millions of embedded electronic measuring devices: thermostats, pressure gauges, pollution detectors, cameras, microphones, glucose sensors, EKGs, electroencephalographs. These will probe and monitor cities and endangered species, the atmosphere, our ships, highways and fleets of trucks, our conversations, our bodies--even our dreams ....What will the earth's new skin permit us to feel? How will we use its surges of sensation? For several years--maybe for a decade--there will be no central nervous system to manage this vast signaling network. Certainly there will be no central intelligence...some qualities of self-awareness will emerge once the Net is sensually enhanced. Sensuality is only one force pushing the Net toward intelligence". These statements are quoted by an interview by Cherry Murray, Dean of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Professor of Physics. It is interesting to outline the timeliness and highly predicting power of these statements. In particular, we would like to point to the relevance of the question "What will the earth's new skin permit us to feel?" to the work we are going to discuss in this paper. There are many additional compelling questions, as for example: "How can the electronic earth's skin be made more resilient?"; "How can the earth's electronic skin be improved to better satisfy the need of our society?";"What can the science of complex systems contribute to this endeavour?

Towards Our Common Digital Future. Flagship Report.

In the report “Towards Our Common Digital Future”, the WBGU makes it clear that sustainability strategies and concepts need to be fundamentally further developed in the age of digitalization. Only if digital change and the Transformation towards Sustainability are synchronized can we succeed in advancing climate and Earth-system protection and in making social progress in human development. Without formative political action, digital change will further accelerate resource and energy consumption, and exacerbate damage to the environment and the climate. It is therefore an urgent political task to create the conditions needed to place digitalization at the service of sustainable development

The Need of Multidisciplinary Approaches and Engineering Tools for the Development and Implementation of the Smart City Paradigm

This paper is motivated by the concept that the successful, effective, and sustainable implementation of the smart city paradigm requires a close cooperation among researchers with different, complementary interests and, in most cases, a multidisciplinary approach. It first briefly discusses how such a multidisciplinary methodology, transversal to various disciplines such as architecture, computer science, civil engineering, electrical, electronic and telecommunication engineering, social science and behavioral science, etc., can be successfully employed for the development of suitable modeling tools and real solutions of such sociotechnical systems. Then, the paper presents some pilot projects accomplished by the authors within the framework of some major European Union (EU) and national research programs, also involving the Bologna municipality and some of the key players of the smart city industry. Each project, characterized by different and complementary approaches/modeling tools, is illustrated along with the relevant contextualization and the advancements with respect to the state of the art